With the recent progress of the electronics technology, a multilayer ceramic capacitor is required to be reduced in size and increased in capacitance. In order to satisfy these requirements, the thickness of ceramic dielectric layers forming the multilayer ceramic capacitor has been reduced.
However, reduction of the thickness of the ceramic dielectric layers leads to relative increase of the electric field intensity applied to each layer. Accordingly, improvements of the durability and the reliability during application of a voltage are required.
As such a multilayer ceramic capacitor, a multilayer ceramic capacitor is known that includes, for example, a stack and a plurality of external electrodes. The stack has a plurality of stacked ceramic dielectric layers and a plurality of internal electrodes formed along interfaces between the ceramic dielectric layers. The plurality of external electrodes are formed on an outer surface of the stack and electrically connected to the internal electrodes (see PTD 1). PTD 1 discloses an internal electrode containing Ni as a main component, in the multilayer ceramic capacitor.
PTD 1: Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 11-283867